Secrets of the City

Eva Young’s comments.

I just lost some respect for Parry. While she usually does a good job of calling out the spin in the STrib, but it’s not cool to think that 1. KK is a good columnist because she generates responses and 2. she contributes anything worthwhile or new in terms of discussions. Nearly all of KK’s columns are either already written by someone else during the Reagan Administration or easily predictable. Here’s a dollar that the next one is either on the B5 stampede and role models or the President’s ridiculous veteran’s day speech.

Why is this a clarification and not a Correction? The strib was not making her points clear they were correcting her erronous information.

clarification

n 1: an interpretation that removes obstacles to understanding; “the professor’s clarification helped her to understand the textbook” [syn: elucidation, illumination] 2: the act of removing solid particles from a liquid [syn: clearing]

cor·rec·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k-rkshn)
n.

Something offered or substituted for a mistake or fault: made corrections in the report.

Punishment intended to rehabilitate or improve.
corrections The treatment of offenders through a system of penal incarceration, rehabilitation, probation, and parole, or the administrative system by which these are effectuated.
An amount or quantity added or subtracted in order to correct.
A decline in stock-market activity or prices following a period of increases.

Altho the second definition seems more apt for the situation.

Dude, Taylor, Kersten is horrible, but isn’t “generating response” a major point of a columnist? She’s not a really a reporter, just an opinionated hag who’s good at laying out her own perspective over current event happenings. Her ability to provoke criticism from the left is an important part of what she brings to the Strib’s table, just look at what that Gyllenhaal character had to say: “No other columnist has stirred up as much controversy and debate. That’s part of what a column should do.” I mean, I’m kind of inspired to pick up today’s issue and see what that crazy whore is saying, now.

So the goal of a columnist is to be a dick? I just don’t buy that — the goal of a columnist should be to generate discussion (not enmity), ideas (not platitudes), and progress (not fear). If along the way you ruffle feathers, that’s swell — but it should not be the modus operandi.

I get the whole “I like to read people I disagree with” thing — but I want my disagreeable adversary to be intellectually capable, and KK just ain’t.

Also, I just realized this is exactly our one-thousandth post. Beer on me tonight.

in general, the star tribune is not intellectually capable, imho. their reporting is as platitudinal (is that a word) left of center as it is right.

kate parry didn’t say or do anything wrong, did she? she has to ride the fence on these pieces, as long as they aren’t wholly inflammatory and ignorant ramblings; and she doesn’t get to choose who the columnists are.

so keeping that in mind, are you willing to forgive her maybe? i just think she can only say and do a limited amount in response to the aggravation old what’s her name causes.

I was so furious when I read the KK article that I responded to her directly (haven’t heard back). I don’t subscribe to the Strib so I can’t even get some little bit of satisfaction by canceling my subscription in angry protest. There are two reasons to cancel your subscription if you do subscribe 1. the dumbed-down redesign 2. the hateful editorials by KK apparently included to get readers all worked up so the Strib can measure if their dumbed-down redesign was working.

I’m not sure KP should be directing her energy here at all — I wish she were more “ombudswoman” than “reader rep,” mostly because I’m still not sure what the latter even is. Basically, I want more analysis of how the sausage is made, and less “a viewer in Hopkins writes…”

But if she is going to take on KK, it should be more than a personality profile piece. A few possible alternative angles include 1) Gyllenhaal’s rationale for hiring KK in particular (over other conservative voices), 2) some reax from prominent conservatives, 3) some comparisons to other prominent conservative columnists, and 4) more honest analysis of the role of a columnist at a daily paper.

I feel like KP started with #4 and concluded “a columnist’s job is to get people pissed off,” and that’s the rationale for KK’s existence.

This is the idea I want to jettison: A columnist that generates the most letters-to-the-editor is the best.

You buy the beerz, and I’ll tell you how sausage is made. Where to?

Oh, I wish, but I’ll prolly be working all night — stupid Olympics. Hex on Wednesday though?

Wednesday? I’ll see what I can do.

If the Strib insists on giving KK a forum, seems to me it it should be on the editorial page. The classical definition of a columnist, to me, is a reporter who’s allowed to inject their opinions into a piece. No matter what you think of the Strib’s other metro columnists – I don’t like Coleman’s sanctimony and think Grow is mostly bland – they do this on a regular basis. KK, by contrast, usually either spins on current events or, at most, goes and finds one source that reaffirms what she clearly already believes. Her best stuff — and I use that term loosely — has been when she at least bothers to go into the community and find real-world examples of things that, yes, reaffirm her beliefs.

I owe Rex a beer, or five.

Yes, let’s use completely outdated statistical formulas to measure the success or effectiveness of a medium that caters to a dying demographic. We’ll call it the newspaper, and it will be the next “kill app”.

How about they allow you to rate each article based off your login. Then we’ll see the digital divide.

KK’s Sunday column (which I shoulda linked to earlier, but didn’t see until just now).

Strangely, it’s about how to hold a civil debate. But it’s also about how “hate speech” is a mis-used phrase. Which, I suppose, would be an okay point, if she only threw a sometimes or can be in there to make herself not sound like a Nazi. Instead, her point seems to be that “hate speech” is really just another way of saying “you and I disagree.”

People like KK make me want to vomit.

Her latest column…. “You can’t call me a bigot! Even though I hate gays and anything non-christian, that doesn’t mean you can play the bigot card!”

People like KK also make me not subscribe to the strib. Her opinions are not novel, nor is her writing creative in any way. She’s merely a mouthpiece for the sad group of religious crusaders trying to make a powergrab in our country.

I bet KK is one of those that thinks there’s a “gay agenda”.

It hurts to see the strib defend KK’s hateful crap. Think if we just slightly changed KK’s anti-gay-marriage columns around, and inserted “interracial” instead of “gay”. You can bet your booty that poop would fly at the strib. So why is it that she can be praised for being a bigot in another manner?

I dunno, maybe the letters-to-the-editor have invalidated my points.

It’s not Kersten, it’s her editors who should know better. She’s just a puppy who pees on the rug. There’s really not much point of getting mad at her. The master who lets her do it, however…

Ah, the sound of oxen being gored.